


The Star in the Sapphire

by Edonohana



Category: Secret Circle - L. J. Smith
Genre: Duelling, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Orgy, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-25
Updated: 2011-10-25
Packaged: 2017-10-24 22:57:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/268822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/pseuds/Edonohana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A rival coven attempts to take over. Naturally, this leads to twelve psychic duels and an orgy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Star in the Sapphire

**Author's Note:**

> Note: this is based on the books, not on the TV series.

Cassie had come to New Salem expecting to begin a normal, if lonely, new life. Instead, she had joined a coven, diverted a hurricane, learned that her father was a three hundred year old evil spirit, and met her soul mate. Nothing in New Salem was normal.

And so, she realized in retrospect, she should have been automatically suspicious of the twelve students who transferred into the high school - not all at once, which would have attracted attention, but a few at a time over the course of several months - solely because they seemed so utterly and completely average. Neither ugly nor beautiful, neither popular nor outcasts, neither geeks nor slackers: they were so normal that they should have stuck out in New Salem like a white picket fence around Dracula's castle. But they didn't. Later Cassie found out that there was a reason for that.

The night that she learned the terrifying truth began as a pleasant one. The Circle had gathered in the woods for a ritual to celebrate the full moon. They lit white candles, invoked the moon, and danced within the circle of flickering lights. Crisp leaves of maple and oak crunched under their feet, sending up a spicy, earthen scent. Cassie reveled in the moon's tidal pull on her body and spirit, and in her connection with the Circle as they danced.

The other two leaders of the Circle, so often at odds, led the dance. Diana's pale hair floated out as she turned and swayed. She was as ethereal as starlight shining through mist, and her feet barely seemed to touch the ground. Faye's black mane lashed like a whip as she stamped and whirled, now snarling as if she was performing a war dance, now undulating as if she was slow-dancing in an invisible lover's arms.

The Henderson twins danced like hellions, tangled blonde hair flying and blue-green eyes glinting. They could have been on the floor of some underground club, or in ancient Scotland gearing up for battle. In contrast, Suzan was all slow sensuality. Her hands stroked up and down her own lush body, then reached up to beckon a come-on to the moon. Sean danced with hesitation and awkwardness, as if he wasn't sure of the steps. He had never regained his confidence after he had been possessed by Black John and used as a murder weapon.

Melanie's feet beat out an elegant rhythm on the ground. Her cool gray eyes were open and watchful. She danced near Laurel, whose eyes were closed in communing-with-nature ecstasy, and occasionally put out a hand to prevent her friend from colliding with a tree. Deborah's dance had no pattern and regarded no one else. Watching her, Cassie thought of Artemis, the warrior goddess, who protected maidens and commanded a pack of hounds that tore her enemies to pieces. Deborah's deceptively small feet left deep gouges in the forest floor.

Nick danced alone. His black hair and blacker eyes reminded Cassie of the earth, the trees, and the night sky. Her soul mate Adam had begun his dance near her but they had drifted apart, and he was closer to Nick now. Adam's fiery hair was the color of the autumn leaves that carpeted the ground and clung to the branches above. But his eyes were like the sky at twilight, or the sea before a storm. If Adam was the Circle's embodiment of Herne the Hunter, Nick represented some darker God: perhaps Hades, God of the underworld, who claims the souls of those who fall victim to the hunt.

The moon, huge and gold as a pirate's coin, traveled across the sky. The candles burned down to stubs, and the dancers began to slow. The ritual ended when the last candle flame died. Exhausted and content, they all stumbled back home.

Adam caught Cassie's hand before they parted. "Sweet dreams," he said.

"I think I'm too tired to have any," she replied.

He laughed. "All right, then. Sleep like a soggy wet log. I know I will."

"Does a wet log sleep deeper than a dry one?"

"Sure," said Adam. "Water is heavy, so a wet log sinks deeper."

He kissed her, and even in her exhaustion she savored her sense of the silver cord humming between them. Then it seemed to stretch and twang. Cassie opened her eyes. Nick was watching them, a dark form barely distinguishable from the shadows he stood in. She only knew it was him because of the sense she had of all the members of the circle, and because she recognized the shape of his eyes that shone so bright with reflected moonlight.

"Cassie?" asked Adam. "Are you all right?"

Cassie blinked. Nick had vanished soundlessly into the woods.

"Just turning into a wet log," she said with a yawn. "You go be one too."

When Cassie emerged from a sleep every bit as soggy and deep as Adam had promised, her first thought was that she had not cast any spell for prophetic dreaming. But she had fallen unmeaning into true dreams before, and she knew that she was neither awake nor unaware.

She saw the school's boiler room, a cold dark place filled with huge machines and the smell of metal, which she had avoided since the terrible night when she had found Jeffrey's strangled corpse dangling from the ceiling. But though she was back there now, she sensed that she was not present in the dream, but only observing it.

Sean was there, and so was one of the extremely ordinary girls who had joined the school. Neither of them seemed to see Cassie.

"Murderer!" accused the girl who stood before Sean.

He cringed away from her. His arm brushed against a humming generator, and he jerked away.

"It was Black John." Sean's bright eyes looked everywhere but at her, and his voice rose higher with each word. "He possessed me. It wasn't me. I don't even remember doing anything!"

"He chose you because you were weak," suggested the girl. "Because you're the weak link in the Circle."

Though Cassie didn't know what was going on, she knew that on some level, the dream was real. And though she didn't know why, it was clear that her Circle was under attack. She tried to move, to support Sean or fight the other girl, but she was paralyzed. She tried to shout, but her lips wouldn't move.

Sean lowered his head in shame.

You have your own strength! Cassie thought to him fiercely.

Every link is needed!

Perhaps he heard her in some way, because he looked straight at his accuser, dark eyes gleaming. "I'm still in the Circle. They forgave me."

"Only because they needed a twelfth," said the girl. "The others don't care about you. They don't even know anything about you - what movies you like, what music you listen to. Ask them if you don't believe me."

He looked about desperately. But Cassie had nothing to give him, even if he could have heard her. It was true: she had no idea what he liked or disliked or did in his spare time. She didn't even know what it had meant when, facing Black John, he'd called upon the power of blood.

But it had meant something to Sean.

Power of blood! Cassie thought at him.

Wild-eyed, Sean pulled a sharp flake of hematite from his pocket. But the girl spoke again before he could do anything with it.

"Every time they look at you, this is all they see." The girl pointed upward. Jeffrey's swollen corpse dangled from the ceiling, swinging back and forth like a ghastly pendulum.

Sean covered his eyes with both hands, dropping the stone he carried. The girl reached forward and calmly thrust her hand into his chest. No wound remained when she pulled her hand out, but her palm cupped a handful of blood.

He screamed, not in pain but in loss - and then he, the girl, and the boiler room vanished from the dream.

Cassie knew that something terrible had happened to him. But what?

Then she was transported into another scene. The Henderson twins were trapped in an endless labyrinth of sterile white walls, like a maze of futuristic office cubicles. They stood back to back with only a low partition separating them, but they seemed only able to see their opponents.

"You're nothing without your brother," said the two normal guys who faced the twins. They spoke almost simultaneously, but not quite, making their words echo oddly.

"Where's Chris?!" demanded Doug.

"What did you do to Doug?!" shouted Chris.

"You don't have your own identity," said one guy. "No one in the Circle sees you an individual."

"Without your brother, you're only half a person," said the other. "By yourself, you're only half as strong as any of the other witches."

"You can't fight alone," said one.

"You can't spellcast alone," said the other.

You're not alone! Your brother's right beside you! Cassie mentally shouted.

"You've got Doug somewhere," said Chris. "Power of lightning!"

"I'm gonna rescue Chris!" said Doug. "Power of thunder!"

Electricity began to crackle and flare between their hands.

But the other guys spoke louder. "There's no lightning without thunder. There's no thunder without lightning."

The blue light died, leaving the twins empty-handed.

"Alone, you have no power," said their enemies.

Like two marionettes controlled by a single puppeteer, the other guys reached into the twins' chests. One pulled a lit and sparkling firecracker from Doug's chest; the other took a half-full brandy bottle with a burning rag stuffed into its neck from Chris'.

The twins, their opponents, and the gleaming, orderly maze vanished before the twins could do more than begin to scream.

Was the firecracker Doug's soul? Cassie wondered. Was the blood Sean's life-force?

She hoped desperately that she was wrong. But all the stolen items were clearly a deeply personal, intimate part of the witches they had been taken from. Their willpower? Is that how Black John possessed Sean, by literally stealing his will?

But Cassie had little time to consider the question: she was now in another dream. But this one was different.

Another one of the ordinary girls, who were all obviously part of some evil preppie coven, stood in a bedroom. From the shabby blandness of the furnishings and décor, Cassie guessed that it was a chain motel. The other person in the room was a woman on the far end of middle age. She wore a shapeless housedress the color of dust. Her graying hair was pulled back tightly enough to reveal pink where her scalp showed through, her eyes peered out from behind clunky bifocals, and her face was puffy and tired.

"This is your future," said the girl, holding up a mirror. "Old. Worn-out. Used-up. Alone."

The woman's eyes widened. With a shock, Cassie realized where she'd seen that shade of china blue before. The woman was Suzan - Suzan after forty years of grinding unhappiness.

That could never happen to you! Cassie called to her.

"That's what happens to high school sluts," continued the girl. "They get older and older, and more and more desperate, and then one day they can't give it away any more."

The wrinkles around Suzan's eyes and mouth deepened as she examined her own reflection.

"Though maybe they can still pay someone to take it," added the girl nastily.

Suzan! Cassie shouted. You don't have to be young to be beautiful! Think of Great-Aunt Constance and Mrs. Franklin and Granny Quincey!

"They say beauty is only skin-deep," said Suzan thoughtfully. "But I think it goes right down to the bone."

The girl had started to extend her hand, but now she hesitated. Suzan pulled off the rubber band holding back her hair and ran her fingers through it, fluffing it out. It fell back limp around her shoulders. But the light in her eyes, which were the same clear blue they had been when she was sixteen, brought something new to her haggard face. Suddenly she didn't look quite so tired.

"I've seen ninety-year-old witches dancing sky-clad. And you know what? They were hot." Suzan smiled her old wicked smile as she slithered out of her housedress.

She stood half-naked, with her sagging breasts propped up in a stained bra and her belly drooping over high-waisted panties. But she looked at the teenage girl without a trace of shame.

"I would never wear anything like these," said Suzan with contempt. She caressed her own breasts, and the beige polyester that covered them became crimson silk edged with black lace.

"That's disgusting!" exclaimed the other girl. "You should be ashamed of yourself! The girls in the Circle secretly hate you! The guys don't respect you!"

Suzan's hands slid down her body, fondling her thin ribcage, her love handles, and her plump belly. Her panties transformed to match her bra.

"When I'm a crone," Suzan said dreamily, "I'll still play Pizza Man He Delivers. And all the guys who deliver to me will have a thing about older women for the rest of their lives."

Then she turned on the girl, faster than Cassie would have thought that body could move. "And I'll keep this in my lingerie drawer."

Suzan plunged her bony hand into the girl's chest. As she withdrew it, her hair grew out into a mass of strawberry-blonde waves, her wrinkles vanished, and her breasts swelled enormously, almost spilling out of her lacy bra. In an instant, she was the teenager Cassie knew. Suzan glanced down at the object she held between thumb and forefinger. It was a paper clip.

"Figures it wouldn't be anything cool," said Suzan. She and the other girl vanished. Cassie had the distinct impression that, like the Cheshire cat, Suzan's satisfied grin lingered for an instant after she disappeared.

So we can win, thought Cassie.

The firecracker, the paper clip, the blood: those must be the symbols of a witch's power. But if that was true, then three members of the Circle had just lost theirs.

She saw Laurel in a devastated landscape of blasted rock and the hacked-off stumps of trees. Laurel's long brown hair fell over a stump as she crouched over it, chanting, "Power of Earth, give thee birth. Power of Snow, let new life grow."

The normal girl stood over her and sneered. "No matter how hard you try, one girl can never save the world. A thousand acres of rainforest were chopped down while you sat there singing to a dead stump."

Laurel's eyes welled up with tears, but she kept chanting. "Power of Green, now be seen."

One person makes a difference every day! Cassie urged her. Don't give up!

Laurel laid her hands upon the splintered wood. A tiny sprig of green pushed upward.

"Faye laughs at you," said the girl. "She thinks you're a goodie-goodie and a flake. She buys environmentally unfriendly beauty products just to watch you cringe when she uses them."

Cassie winced. This, unfortunately, was perfectly true.

"And it's your fault," continued the girl. "You're so annoying when you go on and on about the environment that all your friends have started associating your causes with being bored and irritated. When they're old enough to vote, they'll help give big business the right to cut down forests and dump pollutants. Or else they won't even care enough to vote. And it'll all because you were such a bad spokesperson that you turned them against the causes you were so desperate to promote."

The green sprig withered and died. The girl stooped over the unresisting Laurel and plucked from her a delicate purple orchid. Cassie turned away, sick at heart, before she could see the girls and their landscape fade from the dream.

Where the Henderson twins' world had been a nightmare of order, Melanie's was one of chaos. Random letters and numbers scrolled down a background of images of horror. One moment it was polluted skies, the next collapsing buildings, the next starving animals: a new image of war, poverty, or destruction every time she blinked.

"I'm not scared of CNN," she told the ordinary guy who faced her. "And I don't think you like this place any better than I do. Get rid of it."

"You can't leave until you've read the message," said the guy. "It's a test. You have to crack the code."

Melanie peered at the shifting letters.

You've never taken a test you couldn't ace, Cassie encouraged her. Though the enemies were obviously formidable, Melanie was brilliant.

"Gronsfeld cipher," Melanie murmured to herself. She took out a notebook and pencil and began to copy the letters into it.

"You're smart, all right," said the guy. "But that's not always a good thing."

Melanie didn't even glance up from her notebook. "Guys love airheads? If I crack the code, I'll never land myself some drooling Neanderthal with roid rage and a football jersey? You can keep going if you like, but I deprogrammed myself from those messages years ago."

"I didn't think you'd want a Neanderthal," said the guy mildly. "But it's a problem when you scare your own friends. Every time you use some long word she doesn't know, Laurel wonders when you'll realize that she's stupid and stop being your friend."

Melanie's pencil slowed. "Laurel isn't stupid."

"But she thinks she is. Have you ever had any consideration for that? No, you're too busy showing off your SAT vocabulary and math skills. And every time you do, she feels inferior and dumb and worthless. I can't believe someone as bright as you never noticed that. Or did you notice and just not care?"

The pencil and notebook fell to the ground.

Don't fall for that! Cassie shouted.

But it was too late. Even amidst her horror, Cassie gazed in wonder the device the guy pulled from Melanie's chest. It was an elegant brass contraption, old-fashioned and complex, with gears that turned and an engine that hummed. Melanie fell to her knees. And then she and the guy and the chaotic landscape were gone.

So far only Suzan had been able to defeat her opponent. Cassie was torn between worrying about the others and admiring a witch who could deploy scarlet panties as an ultimate weapon.

A kindergarten room, with tumbled blocks and crayoned drawings, faded into view. Cassie was not surprised to see that Deborah, like Suzan, had been physically transformed. The biker girl was so comfortable in her small, wiry body that it made sense to try to strip her of that source of power. But for Deborah, the clock had been turned backward. Despite the danger of the situation, Cassie almost laughed to see the girl who lived in black leather and chains transformed into a chubby six-year-old in a frilly pink dress. She was only recognizable by her scowl.

Deborah's opponent, a guy, loomed over the tiny child.

Cassie felt a surge of protectiveness. Your power isn't just physical, she reminded her friend. You can still fight.

Deborah's little hands balled into fists. "Who do you think..." Her voice trailed off in surprise at hearing her own squeaky tones.

"You're cute when you're mad." The guy patted her curly hair. She jerked her head away.

"What's the matter?" He patted her again, a little harder. This time she tried to punch him, but he easily caught her hand. "Temper, temper."

Deborah glared. "Turn me back!"

The guy smiled at her condescendingly. "Why? This is the real you."

"Not anymore."

"Sure it is. You're hardly any bigger now. Where do you even find a leather jacket that small? If you weren't so weak, you wouldn't need to act that tough. The harder you pretend to be strong, the more obvious it is to everyone that you're a helpless... little... girl."

Cassie gathered her thoughts to provide encouragement, but Deborah spoke first. "If I'm that pathetic normally, then turn me back. I'll `hardly be any bigger.' I shouldn't be any kind of challenge for a strong guy like you." Deborah's fierce grin was strange to see on her child's face.

"It's funnier to watch you pat me with your little fists." He held his hands wide open and beckoned to her, smirking. "Come on. Give me your best shot."

Deborah lowered her head and dropped her hands. The guy's contemptuous smile widened in triumph. Then she darted forward. She swung her hips as her little fist lashed out, putting her entire body weight into the blow. The guy doubled over with a howl of agony. The child Deborah was the perfect height to punch below the belt.

"Moron," said Deborah with satisfaction. "You've obviously never baby-sat, or you'd know how hard little girls can hit. I didn't even have to use witchcraft. Oh well. That was more fun anyway."

Stooping over her opponent, who had slowly collapsed and was now writhing on the floor, she pulled an enormous broadsword from his chest.

"Compensating for something?" she inquired. Deborah was now her usual self, clad in buckled leather. She snapped her fingers, and a huge sheath appeared across her back. As she hefted the sword above her head, she and the guy vanished.

Another win! Cassie exulted. Now the only ones remaining were Nick, Adam, Faye, Diana, and herself: some of the strongest and most confident witches in the Circle. Cassie felt sure that all of them could defeat the remaining enemies, and then they could use the new power they'd gained to wrest back what had been stolen from the others in their circle.

But Cassie winced when she saw the site of the next vision appear: it was the wood where she had broken up with Nick, down to the ashes of the bonfire that had burned so fiercely that night.

"Get me out of here," said Nick with quiet menace. "Get us all out."

The guy facing him seemed unfazed. "Back to the Circle? Back to spending night after night with the most gorgeous girls in school... who'll never see you as anything but a weirdo... a freak... an iguana?"

You are nothing like an iguana! Cassie called to him.

"Iguana," Nick said calmly. "That's a new one."

"Aren't you tired of watching the girl you love making out with another guy?" retorted the guy. "If Adam wasn't there, Cassie would come back to you. She really does like you. Adam is the only guy in the world you can't compete with. But if he wasn't there... Oh, nothing terrible, but if, say, he was suddenly forced to move to another country... I could teach you a spell for that."

Nick's face didn't change, but his opponent seemed to sense an advantage. He laid his palm flat on Nick's chest. But before he could reach within, Nick wrenched away. Panting, he stumbled against a tree.

"You'll never get the girl if you're not willing to go all-out for her," said the guy. "I know you've got passion - prove it! That cool act of yours doesn't do you any good."

"It's not an act," said Nick. "I'm cold all the way through."

To Cassie's astonishment, Nick put his hand to his own chest and pulled out a sword of gleaming ice. His enemy gaped at him. Before the other guy could recover, Nick held it to his opponent's throat. Then Nick jabbed his other hand forward and withdrew it clutching a dry branch. Its thorns pierced his fingers, and blood ran down.

But when Nick spoke, the even tones of his voice gave no hint of pain. "I only want Cassie if she chooses me of her own free will."

The scene vanished. Cassie was torn between relief that Nick had won, and sorrow and guilt at the pain that he wouldn't show. She did like him. But he wasn't her soul mate. How could he bear to watch her with Adam, especially when he had no one of his own?

As if her thoughts had summoned him, Adam appeared. Given the way the last duel had gone, Cassie expected to see him on the beach where he had first kissed her, when he was still Diana's boyfriend. But to Cassie's surprise, he was in a location utterly unfamiliar to her, a hallway in some huge apartment building. Rows and rows of doors, distinguishable only by number, fanned out in both directions. Every door but one was closed. Adam stood with his back against the wall, across from the door that was open just wide enough to reveal the ordinary girl who stood inside the room.

"You know where you are," the girl said quietly.

Adam nodded, a quick jerk of his head. He was biting down on his lower lip.

"This is the test," said the girl. "You know what's in the room. If you come inside anyway, you win. If you stay out in the hallway, I win."

Adam clenched his fists, but he didn't move. Cassie had no idea if the room was from memory or nightmare, but it clearly terrified him. Adam hadn't been afraid to face evil spirits or hurricanes - what could possibly scare him so badly?

Whatever it is, you can face it! Cassie urged him. You don't even have to fight! You just have to walk through a door.

He took one step forward, then stopped. "I can't," he muttered. "I can't do that again."

The girl slipped through the half-open door and approached Adam. Cassie strained to see what was inside, but all she could see was part of a very ordinary-looking sofa. Though by now she was starting to register all ordinary things as vaguely sinister.

Adam! shouted Cassie. Go in! Nothing inside could be as bad as what she'll do to you if you stay here!

"Yes, it can! Cassie, I can't! Please don't ask me!"

Cassie was startled to realize that alone of the Circle, he had heard her as more than an inner prompting. Maybe it was through the silver cord connecting them, which she could feel even here, vibrating with his tension and pain.

All right. Cassie tried to put gentleness into her words, though what she mostly felt was frustration. If you can't, you can't.

She expected him to lunge for the door at the last minute. But he stood sweating and still while the girl plucked an oak leaf from his heart. Through the silver cord, she felt his devastating loss as her own.

What had happened in that room? Cassie wondered as he faded from view. And why hadn't he ever mentioned it? Had he thought she wouldn't love him if he wasn't perfect?

Now Cassie had to believe that the witches could regain their lost power. What would the Circle be without Herne the Hunter? What would become of Adam if he could no longer call down rain or stoke a bonfire into a raging inferno?

Her fear still lingered when she saw a sight which ought to reassure her: Diana and Faye standing back-to-back within a circle of lit candles. Cassie supposed that, like the Henderson twins, they couldn't see each other, though they stood so close that Diana's platinum locks mingled with Faye's black mane.

"Let go of me!" snarled Faye.

"I'm not-- Ow, stop!" cried Diana.

The girls pulled in opposite directions, but they seemed stuck together. Faye reached behind her back and yanked her dress until it tore. Both girls turned to look over their shoulders. Diana gasped. Faye's tawny eyes widened.

From their shoulder blades down stretched an unbroken expanse of bare skin. The girls had been transformed into conjoined twins.

"Stay calm," said Diana, after a horrified pause. "Did you see what happened to the others? If you lose control of your emotions, you lose."

"That's not how it works!" snapped Faye. "You have to stay confident and proud, that's all. You lose if you're afraid or ashamed."

"I hope that's it," said Diana drily. "Because I know you've never been ashamed of anything in your life."

Faye held her head high, pulling Diana's up with her. "That's right, I haven't."

Diana rolled her eyes. Cassie had never before seen her making such an immature gesture. But being Faye's conjoined twin would put a strain on anyone, even someone as unflappable as Diana. Probably especially Diana.

"I felt that!" said Faye immediately.

Don't fight! called Cassie. You're playing into their hands!

"Never mind," said Diana. "Look, that other coven has obviously done this to us because they want us to fight each other. Any minute now they'll show up and start reminding us of every bad thing you've ever done to me."

Faye's amber eyes glinted dangerously. "Everything I've ever done? Oh, that's right. Saint Diana never sins."

"At least I've never blackmailed anyone. Or teamed up with an evil spirit. Or cast spells over boys to make them date me when they didn't really want to."

"No, you're too pure for that. Or maybe you're too scared of your own desires." Faye reached backward again, this time to stroke Diana's cheek with scarlet-tipped fingers.

Diana jerked her head away. Both girls stumbled forward.

"Stop that!" said Diana.

"I'm just preparing you for what those other girls are going to say to you, to try to mess with your confidence," said Faye. "They'll say you didn't let Adam go out of unselfishness - you did it because you were afraid that if you fought for him, you'd lose. And maybe because you like other people thinking you're perfect more than you like having a boyfriend."

Diana's elegant features hardened. "Maybe you should be prepared for them accusing you of trying to undermine me right now!"

Faye's voice dropped to a husky purr. "If you think that, it's because it's in your own heart. The only difference between you and me, Diana, is that I'm not ashamed of who I am."

Stop this! Cassie tried to make her inward voice an irresistible command. Work together!

If the cousins heard her, they ignored her.

"I'm not like you!" Diana shouted.

She tried to pull away from Faye. At the same instant, Faye jerked away from Diana. There was a sound like ripping cloth as the skin joining them tore apart. There was no blood or scar to mark the place where they had been connected. But the candles burning around them went out in an instant, leaving the two girls standing apart, in darkness.

Then, in the space between them, the full moon appeared. As Cassie watched, it deepened from glowing white to a rich orange, and then darkened in an eclipse. As it paled and began to wax into fullness again, two of the ordinary girls walked up out of the darkness. They silently held out their hands. The moon split into two crescents, and each of the enemy girls claimed one.

Faye and Diana had lost. Now only Cassie was left.

Before she had time to brace herself for her own ordeal, she was struck with a tremendous shock to body and mind. As if she had woken up from a vivid dream, she was suddenly more awake, more solid, more real. No longer a disembodied observer, she felt soft grit under her feet and salty air rushing into her lungs.

She stood on the beach at New Salem where she had first kissed Adam, back when he had been Diana's boyfriend.

Cassie glared at her opponent, another one of the mysterious girls whose names she didn't know.

"Who are you? Where did you come from? What do you want?" Cassie demanded. "Power, I know, but what are you going to do with it?"

"Oh, anything," the girl said offhandedly. "That's the great thing about power: the more you have, the more possibilities open up. Leadership of a Circle - sole leadership. Getting the guy, or the girl. Or both. Money. Fame. Anything."

Even as Cassie listened, she reminded herself to stay confident in her own power. If she wavered - if for a single moment she reverted to being the insecure girl she had been before she joined the Circle - her power would be lost, perhaps forever.

"I'm not here to try to undermine your confidence," said the girl.

Is she reading my mind? Cassie wondered. She thought fiercely, Your guilt-trips won't work either! Yes, I hurt Diana and Nick. But Nick didn't want to me to stay with him when I loved Adam. And Diana didn't want me to deny my heart. I'm not sorry I did what I did, and neither is anyone else.

"I'm not here to make you feel guilty either," the girl continued. "No. I'm here to recruit you."

"You have got to be kidding," said Cassie.

"Not at all," said the girl calmly. "You're the strongest in your Circle, and we need strength. You want power, and we can give you that. You can bring Adam, if you like. Diana too. I know you'd hate to leave them behind. Besides, we lost three witches tonight, so we need three replacements."

"What, like switching out engine parts?" asked Cassie in disgust. "Why would I want to join you, anyway? You're not only evil, you're boring. You all dress alike, you look alike, you have the same personality--you're like an army of clones."

The girl laughed. "That's only because we wanted to observe you all without attracting attention to ourselves. It's a spell to create the illusion of perfect normality. Want to see the real me?"

"I could care--" Cassie began.

But Cassie's words died away as the girl transformed. Her figure ripened into a lushness that rivaled Faye's or Suzan's, but her oval face had a purity that only Diana could match. It was impossible to look at her without longing to touch the delicate skin at her collarbones, or run your fingers through the black silk of her hair.

Cassie resisted that longing. "Like Suzan said, beauty is more than skin-deep. So you're all supermodels. The answer is still no."

"What you have is good. But what we can give you is better." The other witch's voice was deep for a girl's, and as melodic as an instrument made by a master. "You'll never have to deal with Faye's power plays any more. It'll just be you and Diana, working in harmony. You could have Adam - Nick too. For you, they'd be willing to share. Or Diana-- I've seen how you look at her. There's nothing wrong with that, you know. At least, we don't think so."

As the girl spoke, Cassie experienced her offers as vivid illusions, entire lives of joy complete in a heartbeat: Herself and Diana, closer than sisters, calling down the moon. Adam and Nick together stroking her naked body. Diana's lips on hers, as sweet and hesitant as a butterfly on a flower.

She wanted to live in those moments forever. The effort it took to drag her mind away was like trying to lift a car.

"If you think there's nothing wrong with sex," Cassie said at last, "Why was your friend so down on Suzan?"

"We were just testing the strength of her convictions," said the gorgeous girl. "She passed. And you do too. Come with us, and we'll give you everything you've ever dreamed of."

The visions returned in force, fantasies of perfection pulled from Cassie's own mind and flavored with the scenes she had seen tonight: Adam dauntlessly striding through that apartment door. Adam trusting her enough to confide in her what had happened in that room. Nick happy at last, with a sharp-witted soul mate of his own. Faye and Diana reconciled, loving each other and Cassie too.

Cassie fought them off with memories, less perfect but more real: The vibration and speed of a motorcycle, and the scent of black leather. The stinging pain of a bite from Faye's vampire kittens. The girls laughing together as they made themselves up for a dance. The rush of power through her body as she lit a candle.

It was true that Faye was trouble and always would be. And that Sean was weak, and Nick was lonely, and Adam had secrets he'd never told her, and maybe the girl was right that Diana was more to Cassie than an ideal of purity. But like the flaw that creates the star in a sapphire, it was the troubled complexity of real feelings that made the connections in the Circle run so deep.

"I have everything already." As Cassie said it, she knew that it was true.

She rounded on the girl, knowing that even the slightest hesitation or pulling back in disgust would be fatal. Trying not to think about what she was doing, she thrust her hand forward, searching for the source of her enemy's power. She met with little resistance, as if she'd stuck it in a bowl of warm pudding. Then her fingers bumped into something with a more solid texture. Cassie jerked it out.

She woke up in her own bed, with her heart pounding. In the morning light that filtered through the gauze curtains, she saw the object that she gripped in her hand: the translucent claw of some huge cat. Then it melted away, dissolving into her body. Cassie felt a rush of energy and warmth. She knew that if she wanted to, she could do more than light candles: she could reduce an entire building to a blackened shell. It was enough power, perhaps, to help her friends regain what they had lost.

They met again that evening, in the same glen where they had danced under the moon. But it seemed to be almost a different group of people. Gone was the joyous force that had connected them. Though Suzan, Deborah, and Nick were almost visibly haloed in power, there was a manic quality to their energy, as if they might lose control at any moment. Everyone else seemed either dimmed and sad, or full of impotent fury. At first Cassie thought they weren't all even going to show up, until the Circle was completed when a struggling Sean was frog-marched into the glen, with one Henderson twin at each arm.

"What's my favorite movie?!" yelled Sean. "You don't know, do you? None of you know!"

"None of us care!" retorted Doug.

Faye turned on Diana. "This would never have happened if I was the sole leader."

Diana's eyes flashed green fire. "If anyone should be sole leader, it should be Cassie! She's the only one of us who kept her power."

Laurel quietly started to cry. Melanie reached out a hand to comfort her, then pulled it back.

Adam sat staring at the ground between his feet. He seemed so distant that Cassie wondered if the silver cord connecting them had snapped. She closed her eyes, ignoring the arguments that erupted all around her, and felt for it with her mind. It glowed faint but present. Mentally, she gave it a tug.

"Cassie."

She opened her eyes. Adam was standing beside her. He looked worn and depressed, more hunted than hunter, but amidst the squabbling, disintegrating coven, his quiet presence was like a warm rock on a winter day.

"You know you can always tell me anything," she said awkwardly. "What are soulmates for?"

"Yeah, I know." He took her hand. His fingers were cold. "Listen, Cassie, being soulmates means we know each other down to the bone. Even down to the spirit. But that doesn't mean we automatically know everything in each other's minds or pasts or hearts. Maybe being soulmates makes that harder, because it feels like we should know everything. It makes it feel like every secret is terrible."

Cassie swallowed. "Isn't your secret terrible?"

To her astonishment, Adam laughed. His gray-blue eyes lit up, and he once more looked like the wild boy who ran through the woods with his wolflike dog at his side.

"No, it's stupid," he said wryly. "It was a nightmare I used to have when I was a kid... you know how bad those can be..."

"I used to dream my bones were turning into Jello," volunteered Cassie. "It was horrible."

"Well, there you go. In my dream, if I went inside that apartment, when I walked past that sofa... a hand would reach out from underneath it and grab my ankle."

"And then?" Cassie prompted.

Adam shrugged. "That's it."

"That's it?!"

"In the dream, it was the scariest thing ever. Of course when I woke up I wanted to bang my head against the wall. That other coven really got our numbers. Look at us!"

She had been trying to concentrate on her conversation with Adam, but the din was getting louder. It looked like a ten-way fight was about to break out at any second.

"Everyone, listen up!" Cassie shouted. She used a little of the power burning within her to give her voice extra force. Silence fell, broken only by a disdainful huff of breath from Faye.

"That other coven got to us by breaking us up," Cassie said. "First they separated us so we couldn't draw on each other's strength. Then they made us ashamed of needing each other. Well, we shouldn't be. That's the whole point of a Circle: we're stronger together than we are apart."

"Yeah!" said Chris.

Doug nodded vigorously.

"They turned us against each other," said Laurel softly, looking at Faye.

Melanie put her arm around Laurel. "They made us doubt our friendships."

"It didn't work on all of us," said Deborah, buffing her short nails against her leather jacket.

"No, it didn't," said Nick thoughtfully. "But I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from that. I think some of those witches had a better sense of our weaknesses than others. Mine, for instance..."

"Yes?" purred Faye.

Nick's dark eyes met hers, amused. "I'm not giving you any ammunition, Faye. Let's just say that Adam's opponent was more perceptive than mine, and leave it at that."

"So to fight back, we need to renew our bonds as a Circle," said Diana.

"And we need to raise power," said Faye. "Lots of power."

Suzan smiled the same lazy, seductive grin she'd had when she'd turned her crone's body into an instrument of power. "There's a way to do both. What if we all did the Great Rite?"

A long silence fell.

"Non-symbolically," Suzan added.

"We know what you meant," said Nick. It was impossible to tell from his even tones whether he thought it was the best or worst idea ever.

"It won't work if even a single person feels pressured," said Diana. When everyone stared at her, she added hastily, "I read about it in the Book of Shadows, same as the rest of you."

"That's true," said Melanie. She now sounded more sure of herself. "It's a ritual that only works if everyone involved genuinely wants to do it and is comfortable with it. If anyone's going to feel ashamed or embarrassed the next morning, there's no point even trying."

"I'm never ashamed." The tip of Faye's tongue flicked out and moistened her full lips.

Cassie was sure it was a deliberate gesture, meant to tip the group into genuinely wanting to do it. She braced herself against being swayed by Faye... but then, so what if she was? To regain its strength, the members of the Circle needed to influence each other more, not less. She looked again at Faye, and then at Diana, sitting so close together, one so dark, one so fair. And at Adam and Nick, one fire, one ice.

Deliberately and unashamed, she looked around the Circle. Everyone else was doing the same thing. They were all her friends, she loved them all, and they were all beautiful to her. The slow warmth of desire gathered in her belly.

"An' it harm none, do as thou will," someone murmured. Cassie never knew afterward who had spoken the quote, which was written at the beginning of all their Books of Shadows.

Nor did she ever know who moved first. Later she recalled images, but not their order: Laurel and Melanie stripping Deborah of her leathers as solemnly as two pages undressing a knight after battle. Suzan saying with a laugh, "Come fulfill my twins fantasy." The wild light that gleamed in the twins' eyes when they realized she was both teasing and serious. Sean downcast, left out, until Chris and Doug once more grabbed one arm each and hauled him over. Laurel and Melanie kissing each other, first tentatively, then boldly, and then as if they'd been practicing forever.

"Cassie," said Adam huskily. "Would you like to watch?"

She had no idea what he meant her to see, but she nodded. He reached out to Nick, and Nick came forward and kissed him. Nick's eyes were closed, and his lashes fluttered like moth wings against the pale skin beneath his eyes. Adam's arms closed around Nick's back, and Cassie recalled how strong and firm they had felt when they were around her own. Diana too had felt that secure hold. Cassie felt a twinge of jealousy, or maybe of cold. Then Adam reached out and stroked her cheek.

"Only if you want to," he said.

Nick opened his eyes. His face was slightly flushed, and his lips were dark. He had one hand up Adam's shirt, but he laid the other on her shoulder.

"Whatever we do tonight has to be of our own free will," Nick said softly. "Our own desire. What's your desire, right now?"

Cassie felt as if everything she had ever desired was within her grasp this night. But right now... "I want to watch you love each other."

Adam smiled, and she knew he was pleased to have guessed her fantasy and be able to fulfill it.

Nick pulled off Adam's shirt and flicked his tongue against one of Adam's nipples. Cassie felt the jolt of sensation through the silver cord. She gasped, and Adam exhaled slowly and closed his eyes. Then Nick slowly began to lick and kiss his way downward.

"They're so beautiful together," murmured Diana.

Cassie was not surprised to see that Faye too had drifted to her side. It seemed right that the three leaders of the Circle should be together now. All three of them were still fully dressed, as if they had been waiting for each other.

"Enemy sex," murmured Faye in Cassie's ear. Her breath was warm and smelled like cinnamon, and the tongue that flicked across Cassie's earlobe was like a caress of fire. "Hot and a little scary. It's the best kind."

"It's about love," said Diana softly. Her slim fingers stroked Cassie's jawline, then crept with agonizing delicacy down her throat and across her collarbones. "I love you. I love all of you. Even you, Faye."

Cassie's eyes had closed involuntarily, but she opened them when she heard the sound of cloth ripping. Faye had torn open Diana's white dress, and Diana's pink-tipped breasts were revealed like flowers blooming through snow. Cassie hesitated. But Diana smiled at her with all the warmth of their long friendship and a new wildness beside.

"I want you to," Diana said, and brushed her own fingertips across her nipples. Cassie felt her own nipples stand out against the thin cloth of her blouse at the sight of Diana's hardening.

Cassie bent and took one in her mouth. Diana's gasp of pleasure was all the reward she could have wanted, but at the same time she felt Adam's ecstasy coursing through the cord that bound them. The sharp pain of Faye's teeth nipping at her ear only added to the moment.

She was pressed between Diana's slim elegance and the luscious abundance of Faye's voluptuous body. Laughing, the cousins pushed her down to the ground. Their long hair fell past their shoulders and tickled Cassie's skin. Her senses were so attuned that she could feel the difference between Diana's fine strands and Faye's springy locks, and smell Diana's apple-scented shampoo, Faye's sandalwood, and the natural oils of their hair.

Faye pinned Cassie's hands above her head, her sharp nails biting deliciously into Cassie's wrists, while Diana kissed her. Diana's lips were every bit as soft as Cassie had imagined, and her tongue flicked against Cassie's with intoxicating passion.

Adam and Nick came forward, naked and bold as a pair of woodland spirits. Cassie felt power and ecstasy build within her as she was caressed and teased with hands and tongue, and caressed and teased in turn. She no longer knew who was touching her or who she touched, but it didn't matter; everyone in the Circle was trusted and loved.

How long their communion lasted, hours or all night, was impossible to say. But the union of man and woman, woman and woman, and man and man, representing the Great Joining of God and Goddess, was achieved, and achieved, and achieved.

Without magic, they would have become sated and lazy; but instead the energy raised by the Circle's re-forging hummed between them. It was like a silver cord that connected them all. Without having to speak, the members of the Circle arose, still sky-clad, and joined hands.

In an instant, they were transported to a dream-world of their own creation. It looked like the woods their bodies stood in, but they now surrounded twelve very startled and no longer ordinary-looking witches.

"With human touch we bind thee," said Suzan.

"With strength of will we bind thee," said Deborah.

"With lightning flash we bind thee," said Chris.

"With thunder blast we bind thee," said Doug.

"With blood and bone we bind thee," said Sean.

"With tree and leaf we bind thee," said Laurel.

"With sand and stone we bind thee," said Melanie.

"With wall of ice we bind thee," said Nick.

"With falling rain we bind thee," said Adam.

"With rising moon we bind thee," said Cassie.

"With crescent moon we bind thee," said Diana.

"With dark of moon we bind thee," said Faye.

The power of the Circle rose up like a tornado, snatching back what had been stolen from them and returning what they had taken. But the other witches had no time to glory in the power they had regained: no sooner was it back in place than the binding locked tight around them.

"You are bound to this world," said Cassie. "You may no longer travel in the dream world, nor transport anyone else there."

"Be content with the power you already have," said Diana.

Faye bared sharp white teeth. "Or we'll take that too!"

The dream world vanished. The Circle once more stood in the woods. With the ritual over, they once more felt the chill of the night air on their bare skin. They edged closer together, warming each other with their body heat, as they got dressed.

Cassie glanced at Adam. He now looked more like a tired teenage boy with rumpled red hair than a wild forest God.

"I can't be Herne all the time," he said apologetically. "Sometimes I'm just a guy who used to be a kid who was scared of a sofa."

"That's all right," replied Cassie. "I'm not the Goddess full-time either."

"You're always the Goddess," said Diana. "All women are. And all men are Gods. It's not about being perfect; it's about knowing how to look."

Cassie looked around the Circle. Eleven Gods and Goddesses looked back.


End file.
